Did everyone hate eachother before the internet?

[rousseau]

This is a semi-serious question - for those who were around long before the arrival of the internet, did you perceive as much polarization around you?

I remember growing up away from computers, where you'd meet people in person, and you would talk about things other than politics. Your opinions of these people would be dictated mainly by whether or not they were a jerk, and that was that. Where nowadays it feels like the internet has made the world far more political and polarized. Your political leaning, or the party you support, has become a heuristic on which others judge you. If you don't believe the right things, or say the right things, you are a bad person.

And with such an abundance of information coming at us, it also feels like many of us have gone into panic mode - the world needs fixing, and I need to do something. Every day is a battle with an ambiguous other that is the source of all of our problems.

Was life really that different before the internet? It's starting to feel that way.

 

[ideologyhunter]

The net is an intensifier to trends that were already present in the 60s, 70s, on up. What were formerly extremist positions moved into the mainstream. The "other" became un-American. With the net, you can customize your message intake, and you can advance your snark level to a degree that would be unthinkable in a one-on-one conversation in the open (or face-masked) air. I wish I could resist the seduction of this partisan gnat storm, but often I don't.

 

[Politesse]

I can't speak to Canada, but it was definitely like this here for my whole life. It was different before the internet, but no less rancorous. Centrists and the racial and religious majority wielded a lot more power, were deeply defensive of it, and it was harder to organize any resistance if you weren't in those categories. So in a way things were "quieter", but no less spiteful.

 

[Rhea]

I'm going to go with...

Slavery
Jim Crow
Trail of tears
Sand Creek Massacre
Red Scare
Blacklisting
Anti Irish/Italian
Internment camps
Vigilantes
Gerrymandering
Witch trials
Manifest Destiny
the Inquisition
The Troubles
Apartheid
...


And just mark that as a "yes."

 

[jab]

yes, I think so: it just wasn't enunciated in public as much--what seems to be upped by the Internet is a more consistent feeling of anger and outrage, rather than hatred per se--general huffiness and umbrage.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I've posted this several times already, but it's the nature of the medium, NOT the nature of mankind. When journalists were the only news reporters, they typically would ignore the extreme positions, since they cancel each other out on either end of the political/human spectrum. Both "sides" have around 15% fanaticists, to coin a phrase. They would shout as loud as they could, but it was very easy to simply ignore them, because the only medium that tolerated them was in a literal public square (aka, protesting).

Now, however, that same radical fringe has a medium that heralds only the most extreme, so the fringe had been placed into a "mainstream" position, pushing out the more level-headed majority.

But it can all really be traced to Fox News, because they showed how profitable "news" could be. Then CNN proved it could be profitable 24 hours a day, so the profit-over-truth drive began.

For illustration's sake, let's say that BI (before internet), there would be something on the order of 5-10% of extremist views/events/"news" being reported, then today you're looking at more like 60-70% of extremist views/events/"news" being reported. Those aren't gospel, but it's close. More people get their "news" from Facebook than any other source. Facebook ffs.

But, yeah, it's not that there is "more," it's just that there is more coverage of what used to be rightfully neglected by responsible journalists as extremist noise.

 

[Toni]

I'm going to go with...

Slavery
Jim Crow
Trail of tears
Sand Creek Massacre
Red Scare
Blacklisting
Anti Irish/Italian
Internment camps
Vigilantes
Gerrymandering
Witch trials
Manifest Destiny
the Inquisition
The Troubles
Apartheid
...


And just mark that as a "yes."

And don't forget what they now call slut shaming. Which has always been a thing.

 

[southernhybrid]

I think the main difference is that people were much less vocal about their hatred for each other. Of course, sometimes the hatred was very open, but the internet has made it easier to be anonymous when you're openly hateful. The internet has also been used as a recruiting tool for hate groups. Sometimes people are simply lonely and isolated, desiring a sense of belonging, which makes them easy targets for hate groups. The hate groups reach out the them and make them feel like they have a community. Prior to the internet, it was much harder to recruit people into a hate group.

But, the internet has also given decent people a way to reach out to each other and form supportive communities. I once had a patient in the early 80s, who was paralyzed and lonely, so he got a CB radio, which allowed him to find his own small community of supportive people. If he had lived during this day and age, he would have been able to find a lot more people to support him.

Like most everything that humans do and create, there are both positive and negative outcomes.

 

[Tharmas]

Koy makes a good point, that the Internet serves to amplify a vocal minority. Still, I think there have been times when the majority, or at least more than a small minority, acts hatefully. I’m thinking for instance of the time in 1957 when Eisenhower nationalized the Arkansas national guard and sent elements of the 101st airborne division to Little Rock to protect a handful of black teenagers who were trying to enter a segregated school. At the time a clear majority of the population in the South, along with the press and radio, supported segregation.

In fact, I think racism may reflect the beliefs of very many although, again, only a minority act on those beliefs.

 

[bilby]

All you punks and all you teds
National Front and Natty dreads
Mods, rockers, hippies and skinheads
Keep on fighting 'till you're dead

- Do the Dog The Specials, 1979.

Not much Internet in the '70s, but plenty of conflict and aggravation.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWpQ54f8cA4[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Testy Calibrate]

This is a semi-serious question - for those who were around long before the arrival of the internet, did you perceive as much polarization around you?

I remember growing up away from computers, where you'd meet people in person, and you would talk about things other than politics. Your opinions of these people would be dictated mainly by whether or not they were a jerk, and that was that. Where nowadays it feels like the internet has made the world far more political and polarized. Your political leaning, or the party you support, has become a heuristic on which others judge you. If you don't believe the right things, or say the right things, you are a bad person.

And with such an abundance of information coming at us, it also feels like many of us have gone into panic mode - the world needs fixing, and I need to do something. Every day is a battle with an ambiguous other that is the source of all of our problems.

Was life really that different before the internet? It's starting to feel that way.

yes and no for me. Reagan (and Norquist et al.) and the rise of the religious right plus rush Limbaugh and right wing radio was an eye opener for me. I was surprisingly naive though. I realized that wingnuts could find each other and that people were very different from what I had previously assumed. There was a sort of nebulous hate bubbling up that could turn up in surprising places but it took trump to really galvanize idiots and narcissists into a coherent group that I encountered in real reality.

 

[steve_bank]

Back in the 70s pepole I knew visited each other and broke bread.

When I'd be at somebody's house we usually ended up talking at the kitchen table.

No, people did not generally hate each other. Back then adults usually but not always acted like adults.